Today's News

Roane County Master Gardeners will have an Aug. 24 workshop on preservation of the harvest and cool season gardening, the third workshop in a Sustainable and Edible Landscapes series.
Discussion includes food preservation principles and techniques, preventing insects from overwintering in the garden and other key cool-season gardening topics; a hands-on demonstration of food preservation techniques.
Lunch will be served; there will be a fee for workshop participation. Contact MGRoaneCounty@comcast.net or 919-5769 to register or for details.

Betty and Jim Wilson have around 20 butterfly bushes around their Kingston home that have attracted a swarm of butterflies this year.
Yellow and black tiger swallowtails were particularly attracted to the bushes one day last week.

Betty said she loves to garden but jokes she doesn’t know how.
“I try everything,” she said. “Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t”

The next property reappraisal for Roane County is 2015.
Values could decrease at that time, according to what officials said earlier this month.
“Roane County will probably go down,” said T.H. Brown, chairman of the Roane County Board of Equalization.
“From what we are seeing, there’s definitely a decline in most areas as far as real world qualified sales compared to what we have as values in the assessor’s office,” Property Assessor David Morgan said.

Should a man who is out of jail on a $250,000 cash bond be able to afford his own attorney?
The answer is no in the case of accused killer Shawn Smoot.
“He didn’t come up with that money,” attorney Bob Vogel said. “His family did.”
Smoot was released from jail in March after his parents posted the $250,000 cash bond.

Despite the six-figure surety, Smoot is still considered an indigent defendant in Roane County Criminal Court, which means the state is paying for Vogel to represent him.

Chasity Pennington didn’t plan on getting her mammogram last year.
It’s a good thing she did. If she hadn’t, it might have been too late to help her today.
“To me, it is God’s work,” the Oliver Springs woman said. “If I had waited even a year, the outcome would have been totally different.”

Pennington was diagnosed and treated for an aggressive form of breast cancer shortly after her mammogram by the University of Tennessee Medical Center mobile mammography unit.

Darkhorse Designs’ Lars Paulson is anxious to get started with work on the land he hopes to make a permanent renaissance festival in Harriman.
Lars and wife Barrie Paulson got approval last week of a non-binding letter of intent regarding 86 acres in what is called the Harriman industrial park property off Fiske Road.
The couple plan to bring a contract for a 10-year lease of the property with an option to buy it to a coming Harriman City Council meeting.
The Paulsons have financial backers and hope to have a festival up and going by next May.

Kent Booher, a lawyer from Harriman, was indicted in Loudon County on Monday on several sex charges.

Booher was indicted on three counts of aggravated statutory rape, one count of solicitation of a minor and one count of aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor.
“It’s a surprise to me,” Kingston attorney Chris Cawood said. “I know him. I always thought he was a good guy and it’s really shocking to hear that.”
Booher does criminal defense work in Roane County Criminal Court.

Carleton Goins had a chance to face a jury on Tuesday.
Instead, he decided to plead guilty to charges of selling cocaine.

“A lot of these guys tend to think that we’re not able to get our confidential informants to trial,” Assistant District Attorney General Bill Reedy said. “When they find out we can, they change their mind.”
Reedy said Goins was sentenced to eight years in prison. The case stemmed from a 2009 indictment.

The case against the woman accused of poisoning her co-worker’s Mountain Dew in 2011 was dismissed Thursday morning in Roane County Criminal Court.
Assistant District Attorney General Bill Reedy said the state didn’t have any proof to substantiate the reckless endangerment charge against Ashley Nicole Carroll.
“We were never able to develop the identity of what the substance was alleged to be,” he said.
“There’s no proof at all, medical or otherwise, so it had to be nolle prossed” or dismissed.

A Boys and Girls Club opening in Roane County may be as close as mid-December, but organizers need community support.
The Roane County Boys and Girls Club Unit Advisory Board is kicking off a Founders’ Campaign at the Hooray for Harriman Labor Day Festival.
However, anyone can donate now or in the future.
“All funds raised from the Founders’ Campaign stays right here in Roane County,” said board chairman Mike Dishman. “We are ready. I cannot wait to cut a ribbon.”